This informative New York Times article provides an accessible and instructive case studies of how recent racial demographic shifts have yielded a dynamic in affluent public school districts where Asian-Americans and Whites compete for coveted college admissions. As the racial and ethnic demographics of the United States continue to evolve, historically unchallenged racialized assumptions regarding the nature, aims and distribution of education will continue to come to a head.

Here's the thing: people of color have long known (and again, longitudinal empirical research would corroborate) that we need to be twice as prepared to even be considered to gain access to networks. The challenge is that meritocracy, white privilege and post-racial ideologies complicate excavating this reality.

Controlling for socioeconomics in a largely affluent district, it follows that race mediates the attitudes, expectations, behaviors and advocacy of the parents of different racial groups. Until we acknowledge that the American system of education was not conceived as meritocratic or to "level the playing field," we will continue to run around in circles, waste resources and replicate inequities.